Women

KACHIN STATE—At a Kachin Independence Army (KIA) checkpoint, 13 women take turns keeping watch as traffic winds up and down the road to Laiza, the town below where the rebel armed group makes its headquarters.

Seng Mai, a 20-year-old from the government-controlled Kachin State capital, Myitkyina, joined the KIA’s quartermaster department three years ago before moving to this checkpoint.

“It’s better here; I have more friends,” she says, laughing and waving off the banter from nearby colleagues in the cramped two-room quarters.

Tensions have been high recently in these hills, where the Myanmar Army started deploying fighter jets and helicopter gunships to attack KIA positions after Christmas, 18 months into the renewed war in the northern region.

Although President U Thein Sein called for a ceasefire in January and both sides have agreed to deescalate military tensions, clashes have continued on the ground as the KIA calls for political talks to discuss its goals: greater autonomy from the national government and an end to alleged rights abuses.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy in late December, Seng Mai motioned toward where Myanmar Army forces had recently shelled KIA outposts several miles away, and where they launched helicopter gunship strikes days earlier as fighter jets flew over Laiza and nearby refugee camps.

The Myanmar Army, the KIA and other ethnic minority militias have been accused in the past of recruiting child soldiers. The KIA says it takes in children who are younger than 18 from troubled families, educates them and trains them, but, as with female KIA members, does not send them to fight.

“When we hear the explosions, we head for the bunkers,” Seng Mai said, pointing to a rock face behind the checkpoint.

Lu Tawng’s story is somewhat different. Also 20 years old and from Putao, in the northern reaches of this northernmost region of Myanmar, she joined the KIA six years ago. After working in the militia’s propaganda unit, she moved to this all-female checkpoint, which looks out across a valley to mountains in China.

“Sometimes the soldiers are stubborn,” she says of the male